The problem raised in the first post in this series is whether we can make logical room for miracles, specifically, divine interventions in, or interferences with, the natural course of events. Now nature is orderly and regular: it displays local and global ('cosmic') uniformities. If that were not the case, it would not be possible to have science of it. (But we do have science, knowledge, of nature, ergo, etc.) For example, it is a global uniformity of nature that any two electrons anywhere in the universe will repel each other, that no signal, anywhere, can travel faster than the speed of light, etc. Here is the form of a global uniformity, an exceptionless regularity:
1. Wherever and whenever F-ness is instantiated, G-ness is instantiated.
Now for various reasons which we may consider later, a law of nature cannot be identified with an exceptionless regularity. (For one thing, law statements support counterfactuals while statements of global uniformity do not support counterfactuals.) But laws manifest themselves in global uniformities. (This talk of 'manifestation,' which I find felicitous, I borrow from D. M. Armstrong.)
Now suppose you think of a miracle as a violation of a law of nature. Then, since laws manifest themselves as exceptionless regularities, a miracle will be a violation of an exceptionless regularity. But a violation of an exceptionless regularity is an exception to an exceptionless regularity, and it is surely evident that an exception to an exceptionless regularity is logically impossible. Therefore, if miracles are violations of global (non-local) laws of nature, then miracles are logically (and not merely physically) impossible.
Let's see if we can circumvent this difficulty by replacing (1) with
2. Wherever and whenever F-ness is instantiated, and there is no supernatural intervention, G-ness is instantiated.
An instance of (2) is
2*. Wherever and whenever two electrons are in close proximity, and there is no supernatural intervention, there is mutual repulsion.
And similarly in all other cases. The idea is that the global uniformity of nature is contingent upon divine nonintervention. If God were to intervene and cause two nearby electrons to attract each other, then this would be a miracle but not one that violates a regularity of the form of (2).
But is a law that manifests itself in a regularity of the form of (2) a law of nature? Suppose from time to time God intervenes in nature's workings. He parts the Red Sea for example. But then the relevant laws of hydrodynamics, etc. that God suspends or violates are arguably not laws at all. A law carries with it nomic necessity. How then can a law be suspended for a time or at a place? No doubt God could have created a universe governed by different laws: there is no logical necessity that the laws be what they are. Presumably the laws of nature are nomically but not logically necessary. But creating a universe governed by a different set of laws is different from overriding the laws actually in effect.
This brings us to the suggestion that a miracle is a violation of the causal closure of the physical universe. Well, either the universe is causally closed or it is not. If it is causally closed then every event within it has a sufficient explanation in terms of, and is necessitated by, other events within it. Causal closure would thus rule out miracles. So if there are miracles, then the universe is not causally closed. It would thus be better to describe a miracle not as violation of causal closure, but as simply the denial of casual closure.
But it seems there has to be more to a miracle than a denial of causal closure. For suppose some version of occasionalism is true and God alone is a genuine cause. Then God would be the supernatural cause of every event on the occasion of the occurrence of prior events. But the event could be as unmiraculous as you like, the catching fire of a piece of paper, say. For an event to be a miracle, it is not enough that it have a supernatural cause, the event must fail to fit an expected pattern, it must be an exception to a regularity. But this seems to return us to our earlier difficulty of how exceptionless regularities could admit of exceptions.
So I'm stumped. I'm in the state Plato says philosophers should be in, the state of perplexity.